(CNN) – The Louvre Museum in Paris has added a “national treasure” to its collection, four years after it was discovered during a house cleaning.
“Christ Mocked” by the Florentine painter Cimabue was found in 2019 in the home of an elderly woman in the city of Compiègne. She had kept the rare work of art, which she believed was a Greek religious icon, in her kitchen.
The piece’s unsuspecting owner did not know where the 10-by-8-inch painting came from, said Jerome Montcouquil, art specialist at Cabinet Turquin, who was asked to perform tests on the painting after its discovery.
The 1280 painting fetched nearly 24.2 million euros ($26.8 million) at an auction in October 2019, more than four times the pre-sale estimate.
But then the French government intervened to block exports and grant the painting “national treasure” status.
So the small, rare painting remained in the country for 30 months, during which time the government raised the funds to purchase it for the country.
Now French Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak and Louvre Museum President and Director Laurence des Cars have announced that the painting is part of the museum’s collection.
“These acquisitions are the result of an extraordinary mobilization by the Louvre Museum, making it possible to preserve in France the works coveted by the world’s largest museums and make them accessible to everyone,” the ministry said in a statement, without elaborating to make it was collected. the money.
The ministry called the painting a “crucial milestone in art history, marking the fascinating transition from icon to painting.”
Only about 15 works by Cimabue are known, making the painting a “national treasure of great importance,” the ministry added.
It will join Cimabue’s much larger painting “Maestà” in the Louvre’s collection, and both works will be part of an exhibition in spring 2025, according to the ministry.
Cimabue is the pseudonym of the artist Cenni di Pepo, who was born in Florence around 1240. He is considered the discoverer and teacher of Giotto, widely considered one of the greatest pre-Renaissance artists.
“Christ Mocked” is part of a diptych that includes eight scenes focusing on the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ.
The National Gallery in London houses another scene from the work “Madonna and Child with Two Angels,” which she acquired in 2000. She was lost for centuries until a British aristocrat found her in his Suffolk mansion, according to AFP.
Another work, “The Flagellation of Christ,” is in the Frick Collection in New York.